Posts tagged ‘Sasha Bordeaux’

Greg Rucka’s run on Detective Comics comes to an end with issue 775 (Dec.02), as he joined by Rick Burchett and Jim Royal, bringing Sasha’s storyline to a close.

Batman has been interfering with Checkmate operations in Gotham ever since hitting a brick wall in his search for Sasha. Checkmate does not want to get into a war with Batman, he is too vital to the city to take down. Jessica Midnight is ordered to resolve the situation, and convinces Sasha to meet with him.

Alfred challenges Bruce on his reasons for not giving up the search. Bruce claims that Sasha knows too much about them, and needs to find her for his own safety, but Alfred points out that she has not talked in all this time, and is not likely to. Bruce must have a different reason.

So they meet. It does not start well, as Sasha finally gets to vent all the frustration she has felt for her months behind bars.

But once the anger and suspicion have passed, the truth comes out.

Still, it’s not a happy ending. Sasha’s life was destroyed, and she cannot go back to it. Bruce admits setting her up to find his weaponry, to bring her into his world. And then to making it all about the costume and the rules, to control her and keep her at a safe distance. They did love each other, but neither could act on it at the time, and now it’s too late.

Sasha leaves, and Greg Rucka takes her along as he moves to to develop Checkmate, first in The O.M.A.C. Project miniseries.

The Hunt, by Moore, Hoberg and Gaudiano, also comes to an end in this issue.

It’s set in Arkham Asylum, as the scary beast man hunts for his latest prey. Loads of cameos by inmates in this story – the Ventriloquist, Clayface, Calendar Man, Zsasz and Croc. The creature does not kill his enemy, instead leaving him trussed up, with a note detailing his crimes, for Montoya and Allen to find.

Is this a new vigilante on the scene, or something else?

The final panel just adds to the mystery. We see that the beast is a man in a costume, and part of a much larger game.

This is really all a teaser for the Batman: Family miniseries, which begins this month, and reveals the beast to be called Tracker.

Rucka, Lieber and McKenna continue with the saga of Sasha Bordeaux in Detective 774 (Nov. 02).

She isn’t dead of course. If you thought she was dead, you’ve never read a comic book. While still unconscious, Sasha was taken by Jessica Midnight to Checkmate headquarters.

She is offered a new life, as they “ended” her old one, as a Checkmate operative.

Batman does not believe that Sasha is dead, and gets confirmation that some government agency took her from the prison and faked the death certificate. He suspects Checkmate, but it takes months before he runs into David Said, and gets that confirmed.

As the story ends, Batman breaks into Checkmate and confronts Jessica Midnight. They refuse to tell him anything, and Batman does not even realize that he is standing right next to Sasha, who has undergone reconstructive surgery to give her a new face.

The story concludes next issue.

That scary beast man keeps on killing people in this chapter of The Hunt, by Moore, Hoberg and Gaudiano.

Still no answers, explanation, nor even a clear view of the main character, but it works.

Greg Rucka, Steven Lieber and Mark McKenna are the creative team on Detective 773 (Oct. 02), which follows hard on the ending of Bruce Wayne: Fugitive.

Bruce returns to Gotham after all charges are dropped. Someone else has confessed. Who? Well, at no point in this issue does that, or anything else pertaining to the murder, get explained, so I will leave it a mystery until I get to a book that does explain it. If I actually liked the resolution I’d probably give it.

Despite the confession, Sasha remains in prison, even though she has been cleared. The oddities of the US justice system. Bruce demands that her conviction be overturned.

For Sasha, it’s just more prison, and more beatings. Until she collapses, and is taken to the infirmary.

Jessica Midnight is introduced. She works for Checkmate, and they have been monitoring Sasha for quite a while. They knew about her time with Batman, and decide that she has proven herself capable and loyal. Jessica is ordered to recruit her for Checkmate.

So when Alfred goes to the prison to see Sasha again, he is told that she is dead.

An unusual three-part back-up story begins in this issue, The Hunt, by John Francis Moore, Rick Hoberg and Stefano Gaudiano.

Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya appear in this first chapter, but are not the central characters. This storyline follows a mysterious figure, who looks more beast than man, and who attacks various felons in the city.

Hero or villain, human or otherwise, nothing is for sure in this chapter, which effectively makes it scary.

Bruce Wayne: Fugitive nears its end with Detective 772 (Sept. 02), by Greg Rucka, Sergio Cariello and John Nyberg.

Sasha Bordeaux is the star of this issue, which centres on her time in prison. She has been convicted and sentenced to life. People are still coaxing her to turn on Bruce Wayne and confess all, and she begins to waver in this tale. You really can’t blame her. Prison life is hell, and everything indicates that she has been cut loose and abandoned.

As she reaches her lowest point, Alfred comes to visit. He is brutally frank – yes, Bruce used her. He uses everyone. But he chose to bring her into his world, he trusted her. And a little honesty and compassion go a long way.

So Sasha keeps her silence.

Josie Mac’s story comes to a close this issue, by Winick and Chiang. I found it curious that this does not pick up from the Two-Face scene that ended the previous one. Yes, he told her that he was not the one who had her father killed, but he still had her at gunpoint. What happened?

Anyway, she figures out that the one who killed him was working for the mobster who hired her, trying to bring him down and take his place. She kills him, and after fudging the crime scene a bit, gets promoted to detective. This odd ending does not do anything to win me over to the series, but Josie Mac does return.

Sasha sits in prison, awaiting her trial, and enduring the hardships and humiliations of life behind bars.

Even her lawyer cannot understand why she will not take a plea, or give any sort of proper defense or explanation. And as the story progresses, and Sasha wears down, she begins to wonder herself.

Her dream of Batman coming to her aid, and freeing her, is nothing more than a dream.

But as she reaches her lowest point, a touch on the shoulder from Bruce strengthens her resolve.

Up to this point, I enjoyed the Bruce Wayne: Murderer storyline, to a degree. His silence was a bit annoying, along with the fact that he didn’t seem to be trying very hard to clear his name. But I had faith in it.

After a prologue in the one-shot Batman – the 10-Cent Adventure, which ended with Bruce and Sasha discovering Vesper Fairchild’s dead body in Wayne Manor, the Bruce Wayne: Murderer storyline starts off in Detective 766 (March 2002), by Greg Rucka, Scott McDaniel, and Jesse Delperdang.

Maggie Sawyer leads the investigation, with Montoya and Allen as the detectives on the case.

Montoya finds it hard to believe that Wayne would be guilty, but all she is really going on is that he bought her flowers as a present from Harvey Dent. Crispus Allen, going by the evidence, is sure he is the killer.

Much of the story takes place in the interrogation rooms, as Montoya works on Sasha, and Allen tries to break Bruce. Of course, no matter what the pressure, the two do not break.

They play the recording of Vesper’s 911 call, which includes the sound of her being shot. The cops treat this as damning evidence, despite no killer being identified in the call.

The story closes on Alfred. For the past few years, he had been serving as Tim Drake’s valet as the boarding school he attends. But with Bruce in so much trouble, it’s time to return home.

Wow, what a great cover for Detective 765 (Feb. 02). The story, by Rucka, Steve Burchett, Jesse Delperdang and Rodney Ramos, is pretty good as well.

Jim Gordon’s house gets robbed – completely emptied, the possessions carted away by truck. Batman is out to find the ones who did it, and Sasha fears for the safety of the thieves, due to the intensity of Batman’s reaction.

For the first time, she expresses her concerns to him. But when she says that the fears for the well being of the thieves who robbed the “wrong” house, he jumps on her words, suggesting that she implied there was a “right” house to rob, and sulks off.

Sasha also gets a codename, of sorts, as one of the thieves misunderstands a bit of their conversation, and thinks her name is Cover. Which isn’t a bad name for her, really.

To her relief, and that of the felons, all Batman intended to do was retrieve the truck, and restore Gordon’s possessions, before they got sold and spread around.